This invention relates to a half-carton that contains goods to be transported and a method of forming the half-carton. The half-carton may be used individually, attached to another half-carton, or placed in one larger carton with a second half-carton. More particularly, this invention relates to a half-carton that contains cigarette packs, wherein the half-carton may be sold or displayed individually, attached to another half-carton, packed with another half-carton in a larger carton, or used to display, hold and sell individual cigarette packs. The packaging of this invention may be used with standard cigarette tax-stamping equipment.
Any type of packaging should be sturdy to protect the goods it contains. It is also advantageous that the packaging be attractive for advertising purposes and identify the goods it contains. This is especially true for goods such as cigarettes. Cigarettes are often stored and displayed behind a counter, and consumers often identify the cigarettes they desire by the sight of the packaging.
It would be desirable to provide consumers with the option of purchasing a half-carton instead of a full-sized, standard carton. Consumers also often purchase parts of the contents of a carton, such as individual cigarette packs, and the packaging of the carton should preferably also enable the retailer to provide individual packs from the carton with ease. The opened carton or half-carton with some of the packs removed should still hold the remaining packs without those packs falling out or falling over within the packaging. Also, packaging that allows the retailer and consumer to identify and inventory the contents at a glance is advantageous.
In previously known packaging schemes, it may be difficult to remove single parts of the contents, such as single cigarette packs, without disassembly of the packaging. Moreover, the retailer and the consumer may have to look inside each carton or half-carton to identify and inventory the contents. Furthermore, the contents could also often fall out or fall over within the packaging, sometimes getting stuck, when the half-carton is not full. In addition, the contents may be difficult to remove from the packaging, especially when the carton or half-carton is full.
A previously known carton was formed with sections cut out from the walls, forming windows. Although this method enabled the goods within the carton to be seen from without, it was wasteful in that the sections cut from the walls were often not used and were discarded, resulting in a waste of material. Also, the contents shifted and often toppled over.
Other previously known cartons reduce the shifting and toppling of the contents by inserting rigid divider or partition inserts between the contents. This carton, however, required extra paperboard or other packing materials for the divider inserts. In addition, this carton required that the insert be formed separately from the main carton and be inserted into the carton prior to packing of the contents.
Still other previously known cartons attempted to combine the window feature and the divider feature. Examples of such cartons are presented in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,804,254 (Ness), 2,983,372 (Amatel et al.) and 4,029,457 (Wood et al.). Each of these provided a carton or other container having cut-outs formed in their walls such that the cutouts could be folded into the inside of the cartons, thereby forming windows in the carton walls and partitions for the carton's contents. These methods produced less waste by providing a unitary blank with the necessary cut and fold lines.
Although the windows and partitions of these cartons were formed from a single carton blank, the container structure formed therefrom was significantly weakened by the cutouts from the walls. Because one or more carton walls had windows/partitions cut out from them, they were thereby weakened, leaving the cartons much less sturdy. This lack of sturdiness and support could lead to the cartons or the goods in the cartons being crushed or otherwise deformed during shipping.
In a particular application, a standard cigarette carton contains two parallel rows of five packs each. In each row of the "full-carton" or "standard carton," the five packs are typically positioned with one of their ends facing upward and each of the packs aligned side-by-side in a 1.times.5 pack configuration. Two such rows form a standard 2.times.5 pack carton. Each 1.times.5 pack row could be packaged separately for sale as a five-pack half-carton.
Most states and foreign countries require that tax stamps be affixed to cigarette packs prior to sale. Tax-stamping is typically done at the distributor level, after the cigarette cartons have already been filled with cigarette packs by the manufacturer, temporarily closed and shipped to the distributor. Temporarily closing the cartons may be done in many ways, such as by folding the top flaps of the cartons down over the cigarette boxes and releasably fastening the flaps in the closed position. Automated tax-stamping equipment has been developed to plow open the temporarily closed cartons, apply the tax-stamps of that jurisdiction to the ends of the cigarette packs and then reseal the cartons for distribution to retail stores. Such tax-stamping equipment is generally commercially available and is well known in the art.
Existing automated tax-stamping equipment, however, is geared for simultaneously stamping ten cigarette packs in the standard 2.times.5 pack carton configuration. Accordingly, in order to use existing tax-stamping equipment, separately packaged half-cartons must be configured in parallel pairs such that two half-cartons can be sent through standard tax-stamping equipment as a single 2.times.5 pack carton unit.
The two half-cartons must be held together securely and without slipping to ensure that the tax-stamping equipment will function properly and that the two half-cartons will not be sheared apart by the tax-stamping equipment. In addition, the half-cartons must be easily separable so that each half-carton may be displayed or sold by itself at the retail level.
It would be desirable to be able to provide an improved packaging carton that uses automated equipment.
It would be further desirable to be able to provide an improved packaging carton wherein the carton's contents are visible to the eye for inventory, identification and advertising of the contents.
It would be further desirable to be able to provide an improved packaging carton wherein the carton's contents are easily removable and the carton's contents are held in place.
It would be still further desirable to be able to provide an improved packaging carton wherein the carton structure is further supported by sections of the carton blank.
It would be further desirable to be able to provide an improved packaging carton that forms a display unit.
It would be also desirable to be able to provide an improved carton that makes use of existing equipment for tax-stamping or other manipulations to one of the ends of the goods in the cartons and requires minimal modifications of existing equipment for making half-cartons and for placing goods into them.
It would be further desirable to be able to provide a half-carton of cigarettes so that two half-cartons may be securely paired together for tax-stamping with standard tax-stamping equipment and later may be easily separated at the retail level for display purposes and to enable the consumer to purchase only a half-carton rather than a full-carton.